THE UK Government made nearly 2000 demands for information about Facebook users in the first half of this year, the social network said.

The site complied with 68% of the requests which related to 2337 accounts, according to its latest report.

Facebook said agents in 74 countries sought information on some 38,000 users of the service, with about half of the orders coming from authorities in the US.

The site's decision to release this data, which relates to inquiries from police and intelligence agencies, follows similar moves by Microsoft and Google.

Its first Global Government Requests Report reveals UK authorities made 1975 demands for information.

Colin Stretch, of Facebook, said Mark Zuckerberg's site chose to publish the data to "make sure that the people who use our service understand the nature and extent of the requests we receive".

Facebook has aroused the interest of authorities amid increasing criminal activity online.

However, the site said it resisted a significant number of demands.

Mr Zuckerberg added: "When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name."

He said each government demand has to "meet a very high legal bar" before Facebook will disclose information about its users.